I coughed, coughed again, and swallowed fire. “Fine,” I rasped, grabbing my water and downing half of it.
Charlotte blinked innocently. “Well, it just makes sense, right? You two know each other. It’d save money. You’d have each other to lean on…”
I looked across the table at Tru. He wasn’t looking back. He continued to cut his food into tiny, perfect pieces, his mouth set in a tight line.
“Sure,” I said. My voice was hoarse. Bitter. “Rooming with my stepbrother sounds like a dream come true.”
Charlotte either didn’t catch the sarcasm or pretended not to. “You two were inseparable once.”
My stomach twisted, and I dropped my fork. “Yeah. Once.”
Tru stood abruptly, his chair scraping the floor. “I need to use the restroom.” He disappeared across the restaurant like his ass was on fire.
My dad sighed. “What the hell’s his problem?”
I didn’t answer because I knew, and if I said it out loud, it’d ruin everything.
Just like the kiss had.
I pushed back from the table before Dad could launch into a lecture about Tru’s “attitude problem”. My pulse thudded in my ears, hot and uneven. I muttered something about checking on him and got up fast enough that Charlotte called after me, but I didn’t turn around.
Tru wasn’t hard to find. He’d ducked down the hallway toward the restrooms, shoulders rigid, pace clipped. I caught up just as he reached the corner. My hand shot out on instinct, gripping his arm.
He froze. Then he turned, slow and dangerous, as if I’d just pulled the tail of some quiet animal that might bite.
“What?” he asked, voice low and edged.
I didn’t let go. “You could’ve told me.”
“Told you what?” His brows lifted, wide-eyed innocence sharpened into a blade.
I stepped closer, almost chest-to-chest, anger simmering under my skin. “Don’t play dumb. You know what. College. That school. The same one I applied to months ago.”
He shrugged, a small, infuriating roll of his shoulders. “Guess we had the same idea.”
“No,” I hissed. “We didn’t. I picked that school on purpose. You picked it because?—”
Words snagged in my throat. Fear, jealousy, confusion—take your pick. They all tasted the same. “Why did you pick it, Tru? Why follow me there?”
His lips twitched. That soft, taunting thing he did when he wanted to poke the bear. “Maybe I like their art program.”
“You could’ve gone anywhere.”
“Maybe I wanted to stay close to home.”
“Didn’t you say they had a second-rate art program?”
He tilted his head, meeting my glare with a steadiness that felt like a slap. “Maybe I had a different reason, Dare.”
My pulse jumped. “Like what?”
His smile was sharp, lethal, calculating. “Maybe I wanted to see how long it’d take before you cornered me in a hallway like this. Maybe I wanted to watch you lose your mind over it.”
My grip tightened without permission. “So you did choose it on purpose.”
“Maybe.”
He said it like a dare, wanting me to react. Wanting me to care.
